Charm Is Not Hard To Come By On Croatian Islands
Barry Marjanovich
December 9, 2000
DALMATIA: Spot on for a holiday
by Irena F. Karafilly
For The Calgary Herald
SKRIP, CROATIA- I am in Croatia, on a 394-square kilometre island named
Brac, in the ancient village of Skrip. The oldest settlement on Brac,
tiny Skrip has several Roman monuments, as well as strange stone
dwellings ("bunjas") built by their predecessors, the Illyrians. The
Romans took over Brac in 167 BC, lured by its limestone quarries,
olives, wine and herbs.
Though stone remains Brac's chief export (it was used to build the White
House in Washington and the Reichstag in Berlin), the tourists who flock
here are understandably less interested in it than in the island's
beauty: the rocky mountains sloping down to the placid sea; the quaint
villages dotting hilltops and craggy shores; the tiny secluded beaches.
Brac was the first fully Croatianized island in the eastern Adriatic, a
sea studded with more than 1,000 islands fought over by just about
everyone, but indelibly marked by the Venetians. There are 66 inhabited
islands and they all belong to the spectacular Croatian region of
Dalmatia.
It is peaceful in Croatia now - many of these islands were untouched by
recent conflicts. And it's a safe destination for North Americans. The
Croatian tourist office says that not one of the this year's five
million foreign visitors to the nation's Adriatic resorts was mugged or
attacked.
Croatia, which is trying to rebuild tourism, reports a 60-per-cent
increase in international arrivals this year as peace returned to this
part of Europe.
No where is it more peaceful than at Vidova Gora, where I stand one
morning, surveying a seascape so breathtaking it must have stopped every
marauding brute in his tracks. This mountain is the highest peak of the
Adriatic islands, and at 778 metres above sea level, I experience a
moment od speechlessness and, even more surprising for a confirmed
coward, a sudden longing to take up paragliding! No wonder this was
believed to be home to the Slav god of light.
The light in the Dalmatian islands is every bit as intense and silvery
as in the Aegean. And, what with fig trees and flowering oleander;
vineyards, pomegranates, and countless olive orchards, many places look
strikingly familiar to my Hellenophilic eyes.
And then there is the sea.
At night, I can hear the waves break on the shore, lulling me to sleep
in Bol's Dominican monastery. Bol is a beach resort, but the
15th-century seaside monastery is one of the most serene places I know.
Open to respectful tourists, it offers simple accommodation but
improbably romantic surroundings. Its glorious, stepped gardens lead
straight to the sea, amid flowers and grape arbours, and ancient pines
sinuously arching toward the sparkling water.
In the morning, I wake to the sound of church bells, and Croatian hymns
wafting from the chapel. The adjacent museum holds historic and
archeological artifacts, as well as 16th- and 17th-century Venetian
paintings. I learn that Tintoretto passed through this monastery, which
boasts one of his altar paintings. There is even an invoice from the
master: 270 Venetian ducats for Madonna With Child and Saints.
I have my first swim at Zlatni Rat beach, a remarkable gravelly sandbar
which juts out to sea for half a kilometre, moved by currents to point
either east or west. But more remarkable still is the eastern Adriatic's
limpid water, its shallows golden with swaying spiders of light,
gradually turning turquoise, then azure; and then a vivid, glittering
peacock-blue whose depths abound in marine life.
A fisherman's "taxi-boat" takes me from Brac to the island of Hvar, once
a major Venetian port-of-call. In the 15th century, its capital was
Dalmatia's richest community, until invading Turks destroyed it in 1571.
The town was promptly rebuilt, its 16th-century buildings still standing
around the marble-paved promenade. They all face the water, as does my
room at the Adriatic Hotel. I throw open my shutters to see moored
fishing boats, shrieking seagulls, red-roofed houses graced by stately
palms.
The Venetians have been gone since the 18th century, and this evening at
least, the smells are of grilled fish, and of pork roasting on a spit at
a leafy, romantically lit outdoor restaurant. Dominated by a
16th-century fortress, the old town of Hvar is a warren of stepped
streets with shady courtyards crammed with tropical plants, and gardens
trellised with kiwi or grapevine. Dalmatia is the only place where I
have ever seen bougainvillaea cultivated as a tree, its branches growing
in dazzling purple spikes, rather than in graceful floral cascades.
Charm is not hard to come by on these islands.
(Irena F. Karafilly is the author of Ashes and Miracles: A Polish
Journey, and of The Stranger in the Plumed Hat, a memoir just released
by Penguin Canada.)
Montreal Gazette
If You Go
[] The best way to get to Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, is with Czech
Airlines via Prague (the optional stopover is a great bonus), The lowest
fares are available through Penta Tours.
[] For a free brochures and information, phone New York's Croatian
Tourist Board at 212-279-8672 or e-mail: cnt...@earthlink.net (allow
plenty of time!)
http://www.dalmatia.net/croatia/tourism/index.htm
http://www-bsac.eecs.berkeley.edu/~dubravka/adriatic.html